


Getting Worse

by irlenolacroix



Category: Smile For Me (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Arguing, Best Friends, Confrontations, Gen, Making Up, habismal is like. barely mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:48:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25498597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irlenolacroix/pseuds/irlenolacroix
Summary: Wallus drags Kamal down to the boiler room to ask if he's noticed that their eccentric boss has gotten a little more... weird lately. Kamal doesn't want to admit it, but he sees it. Now they've just got to figure out what to do about it.Set before FK comes to the Habitat.
Relationships: Kamal Bora & Wallus Breadbear, Kamal Bora/Dr. Boris Habit
Comments: 3
Kudos: 27





	Getting Worse

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Wallus pulled Kamal by his wrist down into the boiler room, ignoring Kamal’s grumbled protests. He only let go of Kamal once they’d reached a secluded corner that was free of prying eyes and ears. Well… unless that kid Trevor was lurking, but Wallus hadn’t seen him anywhere nearby.  _ Probably trying to sniff around in the lounge again. _ He was alone with Kamal. It was the perfect time and place to talk.

“What the hell, Wallus?” Kamal shook his wrist and looked up at his friend, frustrated with having been manhandled. “What the hell is so important that you had to pull my arm out of its socket? I was about to go have an important conversation with--”

“He’s just who I brought you down here to talk about, Kamal.”

Kamal blinked. “...What do you mean?”

Wallus sighed, rocking back on his heels and gesturing vaguely with his hands. “Don’t you think things have gotten… worse?”

Kamal’s demeanor shifted. His eyes darkened and he turned to look at the floor. “I don’t want to have this talk with you again,” he muttered.

“Well, that’s too bad, because we  _ have _ to have this talk again.” Wallus really didn’t want to sound mean, but this really couldn’t wait. “It’s getting worse.  _ He’s _ getting worse. And you know that as well as I do.”

_ He _ , of course, was their boss.

Dr. Habit had been… especially strange lately. He’d always been strange, Wallus had known that since he got hired, but at the time he was so desperate for a job that he really couldn’t care less if his employer was a little unhinged. Besides, the pay was  _ way _ better than anything he’d ever gotten for janitorial work before, and it was full-time too. It was easy work--mop, sweep, keep everything clean, polish the giant set of teeth outside, help Jimothan with the lounge after hours, don’t stay up too late into the night. Hell, Dr. Habit had even offered to let Wallus live there! It really seemed too good to be true. So he took the job when Kamal told him about it, and tried not to look back.

Wallus had known Kamal since college. They’d been roommates for a while until Wallus moved out and almost immediately lost his job. Making ends meet was rough for a while, but when Kamal had told him that his boss was starting up an alternative health retreat and needed a janitor, Wallus had jumped on it.

And now he was… kind of regretting that.

“Okay.” Kamal was clearly irritated, but he looked up at Wallus, meeting his eyes. “What is it about the doctor that’s got you so worked up all of a sudden?”

“It isn’t ‘all of a sudden’. You know that.” Wallus tapped his foot on the floor and crossed his arms. “When was the last time you saw him outside his office?”

“Uh… Maybe two weeks ago?”

“Exactly.” Wallus raised his eyebrows. “And every time I go in there to ask him a question or, God forbid, try to  _ clean _ , he’s filming one of those PSA’s or he’s scribbling furiously on some paper or he’s crying alone at his desk and won’t let me come in! He once came up to me sobbing about… I don’t know, something about his dad and about Martha, the teeth outside?”

“He had a rough childhood, Wallus.”

“So did I!” Wallus bit back. “Don’t pretend you haven’t seen it. He snapped at me the other day for trying to clean off the walls in his office. He said I was going to ruin them. I mean, if that’s his form of self-expression, whatever, but…” Wallus sighed, exasperated. “‘No hitting’ posters? What the hell is  _ that _ supposed to mean? Is he reminding us or himself?” Wallus had to consciously rein himself in and keep himself from getting too frustrated. “Just… Kamal, there’s no way you could have missed all this. He’s getting worse and we can’t just sit back and watch it happen any more. Am I crazy?”

For a long while Kamal was totally silent. It was cold silence, and Wallus was getting ready to tell him to forget it and walk out, quit his job on the spot. But Kamal eventually mumbled, “You’re not crazy, Wall.”

Wallus humphed softly. “You  _ have _ noticed.”

“Of course I’ve noticed.” Kamal swallowed and looked at the wall behind Wallus, at a crack that Dr. Habit had refused to let Wallus patch up. “How could I not notice? I’m with the guy almost all the time. He’s… I mean, I’d consider him a friend of mine, even more than he is my boss, y’know? He’s a good guy deep down, he really is, he’s just a bit eccentric, a bit weird, and--”

“But you’ve seen it. You’ve noticed that he’s changed.”

Kamal bit his lip. “...Yeah.” There was another brief pause before he continued. “He’s been kinda short with me lately. Not mean, he’s never been mean, just… short. He’s gotten way more particular about everything. If I move one thing out of place on that messy-ass desk of his, he lets me know and he runs over to move it right back. He spends hours, fucking  _ hours _ in front of the mirror, staring at his teeth, sticking his fingers in his mouth and opening it up and looking through it like he’s searching for something…” Kamal trailed off. “Yeah, I get it. Something’s wrong.” He looked up at Wallus again. “What do you wanna do about it, then?”

Wallus stood there for a moment. It was his turn to be silent, his turn to process. When he spoke, though, he knew he couldn’t take it back. “...I want to quit.”

Kamal raised his eyebrows. “You… What?”

“I want to quit,” Wallus repeated. “Look, the guy’s fucked up, Kamal. That sounds mean, but… I’m scared of him! I’m scared of what he might be capable of. I don’t think he’s violent, but there’s something so fucked up about this place, about how woozy we get at night, about those creepy fucking PSAs, about those goddamn teeth outside, Martha or whatever… Something’s wrong. You know I don’t get angry easily, but I’m terrified.”

“So let me talk to him!”

Wallus blinked. “Huh?”

“Let me talk to him.” Kamal’s tension snapped like a glow stick. “Look, I’m closer to him than anyone here… I mean, Wallus, if anyone can get through to him, it’s me.”

Realization dawned on Wallus’s mind and he held back a groan. “Kamal…”

“No, listen to me! He’s a good person. He is. He’s kind and he’s sweet, he’s just going through some stuff right now. I want to help him, figure something out for him. You can tell he just wants to make people happy, he’s just not going about it in the right way--”

“Kamal, we are  _ not _ making this about your fucking  _ crush _ .”

Kamal recoiled like he’d been struck, and Wallus instantly knew he’d fucked up. “I don’t have a crush on him!”

Wallus bit the inside of his cheek. “You do, Kamal. You do. I can see it whenever you’re around him. You won’t take your eyes off of him, and when you do look away he’s staring back at you. The way you talk about him and the way he praises you, it’s just…” Wallus threw his hands up. “I get it! I understand! If that’s your type, whatever! But you can’t let that little… flirtationship or whatever it is get in the way of the actual issue at hand here. The actual issue being the fact that I think he’s planning to do something big in the future, something with that giant mouth outside and the laughing gas canisters he keeps buying. I get it if you’ve got feelings for him, I don’t care. But that is  _ not _ what the problem is.”

Kamal was staring at the floor, looking like he was a mixture of furious and devastated. After a long moment, he walked over to the wall, pressing his forehead against it and groaning. “What the hell are we gonna do…”

Wallus gazed at Kamal. Something inside him felt a little bad for getting angry. Slowly, he approached him and wrapped his arms around him, pulling him into a hug. “I think I’m gonna quit,” he said quietly. “If nothing changes, I’ll quit. But I won’t leave you here alone, just in case something big happens. I’m not gonna abandon you, ‘Mal.”

Kamal sniffed, and it was only then that Wallus realized he was teary-eyed. “You’re still my best friend even though I’ve… I  _ might _ have a crush on our boss?”

Wallus almost laughed. “Yeah. Even if I’m gonna judge your taste in men now.”

“I can’t help bein’ into big, silly guys.” Kamal let out a soft, humorless laugh and pressed himself against Wallus. “I… I’m gonna stick around. Be there for him, y’know. Just in case he needs me. But I’m not gonna take any shit, don’t worry. If he does anything bad, I’m gonna stand up to him. And I won’t let him say anything mean to me or snap at me. I don’t think he ever would, but I know my worth. Least I’m trying to.”

Wallus sighed and squeezed Kamal tighter. “There’s my smart Kamal,” he mumbled, pressing his face into his best friend’s hair.

Thunder crashed outside. It was going to storm tonight. Martha kept puffing as a few droplets of rain fell, plinking against her metal exterior.

**Author's Note:**

> this was a request for @inkyteeth on tumblr and was a BLAST to write. wallus is one of my favorite characters and i love him sm,,,
> 
> thank y'all so much for reading, my tumblr is @winemomparker if you ever wanna chat! comments and kudos are much appreciated <3


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